


Rush Week

by echoinautumn (maybetwice)



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fraternity, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Fraternities & Sororities, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-07
Updated: 2010-03-07
Packaged: 2017-12-13 01:58:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/818617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maybetwice/pseuds/echoinautumn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>College freshman Pavel Chekov longs to join the coolest of the fraternities, though reputation is only part of the reason why.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rush Week

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [this prompt](http://community.livejournal.com/st_xi_kink_meme/8704.html?thread=7536128#t7536128) at [](http://st-xi-kink-meme.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://st-xi-kink-meme.livejournal.com/)**st_xi_kink_meme** , because I couldn’t pass on the prompt and have been nostalgic for Greek life lately. There are some phrases that might not be immediately obvious (“dirty rushing”, for example, which is any case where a fraternity or sorority uses any kind of illegitimate means of recruiting pledges—including talking to new freshmen before rush week! Also, as every Greek organization takes pains to choose its letters to mean something special, I did so for this as well. Delta Xi Theta (ΔΞΘ) is an organization entirely of my own creation, but the other Greek organizations mentioned _are_ real organizations, and I belong to none of them.

*

Everyone knows that Delta Xi Theta is _the_ fraternity to join on campus. Even if some incoming freshman missed the all-important party they always throw the first week of classes, they see them on campus, the _golden boys_. They help the freshmen move in every year, do monthly charity work and throw the best beach parties, have the most beautiful sweetheart (for the last eight years, it’s been a fierce fight between the sororities, but somehow the guys in DXT make it seem like it’s still okay to lose), and it’s probably true that they fish cats out of trees and help old ladies cross streets, too. Every guy on campus dreams of rushing DXT, and other fraternities _wish_ they were them. The sun seems to shine brighter around these guys, smiling on them like untouchable gods, and none so much as their president, Jim Kirk.

Pavel doesn’t stand a chance to get a bid. He doesn’t even know why he’s bothering to show up to the first day of rush when he fully expects to get laughed all the way back to Archer Hall, where all the male freshmen are housed. It’s just that he’s been focused on this, getting a bid and becoming a brother, ever since he moved in, his sweaty curls clinging to his face when he dragged the trunk holding all his clothes toward his dorm on the fifth floor after his father dropped him and his trunks off in front. He’d made it all the way to the first flight of stone steps before he was flanked by two DXT brothers, their letters in proud gold on crimson shirts (their official colors, he found out as soon as he Googled them), and helped him haul every bit of his things up the stairs. It would have been a simple encounter, albeit one that Pavel would have been grateful for, if the two of them hadn’t stayed and introduced themselves and spent an _hour_ chatting with Pavel before disappearing to help other freshmen.

Since then, Hikaru and Jim haven’t said a word to him, except to tell him that they’re not allowed because they’re not allowed to dirty rush without getting in trouble. It’s only _because_ they aren’t talking to him under that pretext that Pavel’s bothered to come to the first day’s event. He shifts his weight from one leg to the other, feeling stupid in his worn sneakers and jeans and an old science club t-shirt from high school when every other guy around him looks like they were the coolest guy in their high school. These guys _look_ like they should be in DXT, and Pavel can see it on their faces that they know he was the kind of guy they laughed at openly in high school.

This isn’t high school, though, and Pavel’s determined to at least try. Jim is standing by the stairs to the fraternity house, leaning against the brick wall and looking as cool as anything while some of his brothers are laughing beside him. Pavel is still staring when a tap on his shoulder jerks him back down to Earth and he meets Hikaru’s laughing smile.

“It’s good to see you here,” Hikaru tells him and Pavel feels his heart lift up and out of his chest, buoyed by renewed hope that this is something he should be doing. “Have you gotten signed up yet?”

Pavel shakes his head and looks relieved when Hikaru hands over a clipboard and a pen. Even the gold letters on the pen glinting in the sun makes Pavel want this so much more than ever; somewhere he’ll belong, friends he knows he can count on, and just the _chance_ to be close to Hikaru Sulu and Jim Kirk. He prints his name, student number, and dorm hall on one line, just below _Kevin Riley, 00320879, Archer 415_ , who he recognizes as the raucous guy on his hall who woke everyone up on the second night of classes with some caterwauled rendition of Come On, Eileen.

“Great,” Hikaru tells him and claps him on the shoulder. “We’ll get started here in a minute. Tonight’s just the meet-and-greet and game night.” Hikaru winks at him and pulls a paper from behind the sign-up sheet and hands it to him. “That’s the rush schedule for this week. We’ve got a volunteer night tomorrow at the homeless shelter downtown, bowling on Wednesday, Capture the Flag on Thursday, and Friday’s the beach barbeque. Bids go out Saturday morning. You got all that?”

Pavel nods, feeling totally over his head in this because there’s no way he’s going to make it through this week and convince _anyone_ in DXT that he deserves a chance to pledge. Hikaru grins bright enough to make it feel all right again, and leads him toward the house and a group of other rushees, who are starting to huddle in a tight group as they realize quite what they’re doing.

As if there’s been some kind of silent signal, all the brothers stand closer to the house and Jim Kirk stands at the top of the stairs in front of the house.

“Hey everyone, nice to see you here,” he begins, cool as can be, and then launches into a welcome speech that Pavel would bet he didn’t prepare a word of before he turned around on the top step and started addressing the group.

One last time, Pavel curses himself for making a fool of himself like this, and doesn’t have time to think it again as he’s whisked through the entire evening in what feels like a flash, introduced to a steady stream of brothers, playing a few dozen rounds of poker before losing spectacularly at Monopoly to a dignified brother he only remembers as _Spock._

When he staggers back to his dorm room and flops face first onto his bed, he doesn’t even have the energy to do more than grunt wearily at his roommate when he asks how it went.

*

Pavel nearly misses the group before they leave for the homeless shelter the next day because he fell asleep in the library after his chemistry lab, which is already getting pretty intense after a mere three weeks of class. When he jogs up to the DXT house, Hikaru is the first to spot him and he feels his heart do cartwheels when he breathes out a sigh of relief.

“There you are,” he calls, waving him over. “I was starting to think you decided to quit already.”

Pavel shakes his head and laughs breathlessly. He ran cross-country all four years of high school and has never been winded before, and he suspects it has less to do with actual exertion as seeing the way Hikaru smiles at him when he gestures for him to take the front passenger seat of his white stick shift. It’s only when he looks up that he realizes that no one’s getting into Hikaru’s car because everyone was already in carpool groups and getting ready to leave when he arrived, because Hikaru was _waiting for him_. He blushes, the bright kind that he knows everyone can see no matter how much he wants to hide it from everyone, and mumbles a quiet _thank you_ to Hikaru when he climbs in the driver’s side and turns on the car.

“You didn’t have to wait for me,” he tells him as they leave campus, and Hikaru just laughs brightly at him.

“Yeah, I did,” he answers and shifts gears. “This means you’re going to have to work with me all night, though, so if you have a different brother you want to be stuck with, you ought to let me know now so I can let him know and—”

“No,” Pavel interrupts suddenly and shakes his head. “I don’t mind—I’d _like_ to work with you tonight.”

Hikaru nods and leans back in his seat, but he doesn’t say anything as they head for the main road, just turns on the radio to what sounds like the student-run radio station, which plays a pretty solid mix of bands Pavel’s never heard of, some local student bands, and a lot of eighties music.

Pavel already knows from the night before that Hikaru is an aviation major with a minor in botany because he just likes working in the school botanical gardens. He knows that he pledged DXT in his sophomore year, the same semester as Jim, and is serving his second year as risk management chair. He knows that he fences with the fencing club, though it’s only a few guys who make up the whole club. He knows that he’s from San Francisco and he loves the beach and his sisters and his fraternity. He also knows that he has the biggest crush he’s ever had in his life, and it’s because Hikaru is so gentle, so easily popular and brilliant, already the best guy Pavel’s ever crushed on.

He has a long history of developing crushes on the most unattainable guys, the straight football star with the knock-out cheerleader girlfriend, the soft-spoken basketball player from his second period chemistry class in junior year. He’s pretty sure that Hikaru would let him down gently, and that just seems to endear him to Pavel all the more. It’s stupid to pledge a fraternity because of a crush, especially because he has no idea what the guys will think if they find out he’s gay; he’s not interested in hot girlfriends from Tri-Delta or Chi-O or Phi Mu. He doesn’t know how this works, how this is going to play out when it all comes out, but Pavel’s gotten himself into this and he’ll follow this through to the end.

“We’re here,” Hikaru announces and shifts into park, yanking up his parking brake and opening the door.

Pavel scrambles after him and stares up at the shelter. All the other rushees and brothers are crowding around, and more than a few of the former group are looking a little nervous. Pavel isn’t worried, and one of the senior brothers (Leonard McCoy, who didn’t say much to Pavel the night before except to dubiously demand his age) is barking out assignments to different groups.

They serve dinner and Pavel actually smiles despite the nauseous feeling in his stomach when Jim tells everyone they’ve done a good job and announces that everyone should grab a plate and go sit down with the guys out in the dining hall. None of the brothers hesitate, and Pavel follows along, but even he can hear the disbelieving, almost mutinous muttering from some of the rushees. He doesn’t complain, though, and when he and Hikaru are drying dishes later, he catches another wink from Hikaru that tells him that, yeah, he did the right thing.

*

A third of the other rushees don’t show up the next day. Pavel is shocked, but none of the brothers appear perturbed. He ends up in Jim’s group and tries not to be too disappointed, because he really does like Jim, even though he’s not _Hikaru._ No one brings it up, and Pavel can’t figure it out until he sits down after he gets his fourth gutter ball and Jim turns toward him with the winning grin that Pavel knows has to be the key to his success, if the rumors about how much he gets around are true.

“Glad to see you stuck it out this far,” he grins and leans back in the cheap plastic chair, his feet propped up on the back of the chair for the scorekeeper, where Leonard is grumpily tapping in scores.

“Oh,” Pavel says, and then shakes his head and smiles. “It’s only been three days.”

“Yeah,” Jim laughs, stretching his arms over his head. “Told the guys to just get the community service event done sooner, rather than later. Lets you guys prove that you’re going to stick around.”

Pavel stares at him blankly, and Jim doesn’t catch his expression until after he’s done cat-calling at Hikaru for bowling a perfect strike.

“What?” he asks, nudging the back of Leonard’s chair, not looking the slightest bit perturbed when Leonard reaches behind and smacks him on the calf.

“The community service yesterday was…”

Jim gives him a wolfish smile. “Yeah. I mean, it’s sincere and all, but why make these guys waste their time rushing DXT if they’re not going to get into the same things we’re into, you know? It’s part of the experience of being in DXT, and you don’t get to be a brother _part_ of the way. It’s for life.”

Pavel nods numbly and slumps down into his chair. “That’s great,” he tells him, wincing when Jim launches himself up and out of his chair, slapping him on the back.

“You bet it is. Hey Roo, come sit with Pavel while I beat your score,” he calls, strutting up to the lane and choosing the hot pink ball off the lineup.

When Hikaru sits down next to Pavel, swearing at Jim under his breath, Pavel laughs nervously and Hikaru grins.

“I fucking hate that nickname, and he knows it,” he explains and takes a sip from Jim’s soda in retaliation, grinning when Jim turns around and catches him.

It turns out to be the most fun Pavel’s had at a rush event so far, just relaxing with the brothers now that the ice has been broken and they seem more genuinely open than before. It’s a risk on their part as much as on the rushee’s part, he’s pretty sure now. They have something to gain and something to lose, even if it doesn’t seem like it. They finish two more games and Pavel rides back with Jim and Leonard, who alternate between bickering and teasing Spock (whose last name Pavel still hasn’t caught), until they get back to campus and they wish him a good night while disappearing off toward the fraternity house.

When his roommate comes home that night, he’s still smiling while answering an email from his father, but Vincent doesn’t ask tonight, just shakes his head and goes to his homework for his computer class.

*

Pavel comes back to his room the following night sure he’s never been so sore in his life because Kevin tackled him hard for the flag and he’s not sure his head will ever be the same because of the rock he found in the middle of the intramural field. It’s worth it in the end, he thinks, because his team won and Hikaru had looked so pleased at his victory over Jim.

It’s the next night that he’s inexplicably nervous again. Nearly a whole week has passed, and he actually forgot the last couple days that he’s supposed to impress these guys, not remind them that he’s a huge nerd and always has been. He’s quiet all the way to the beach, riding with a brother whose name he doesn’t really remember. It’s a surreal feeling, like something is going to happen, and Pavel just can’t shake it, staring quietly out at the sunset as they drive.

It’s already dusk by the time they make it to the beach, the sun disappearing into the waves and casting a glow all over the sand while a few bonfires grow under the whoops and care of a few brothers. The tension in Pavel’s neck loosens when he steps onto the beach, shedding his flip-flops and curling his toes into the warm sand. Waves roar up onto the beach, the sound pierced by a few whoops and shouts of greeting as everyone crowds on the beach. Jim is prodding a fire and Hikaru is setting up a barbeque near him, laughing when Jim pelts him with a few small shells.

Things are rushed, just like they have been all week, until the party seems to slow down after everyone’s eaten. A few brothers go home, Jim among them, and a few of the rushees go with them. The party is, by all measures, already over. Pavel is standing by the shore and hoping, _hoping_ that he’s done well enough to show that he wants this bad enough to do everything, anything, to get into Delta Xi Theta.

“You look pensive.”

He turns and smiles sheepishly at Hikaru. “Sorry, do you need help packing up before we go back to campus?”

Hikaru shakes his head and shoves his hands into the pockets of his zip-up hoodie, the black one with his letters emblazoned down the left side. “I know we’ve spent all week getting to know each other, but…” He shrugs uselessly, and if this is a ploy because Pavel won’t get a bid, or because he wants to make sure Pavel will accept the bid he _might_ get, it certainly doesn’t feel like it.

Pavel grins at him and looks out at the waves, sitting down in the cold sand and scratching meaningless swirls into the sand that quickly develop into physics equations—delta x delta y, the equation for how fast things fall toward other things. “I have a question, off the record.”

Hikaru sits down next to him and smiles, pulling his sleeves over his wrists. “All right, off the record.”

“Would Delta Xi Theta kick someone out for being gay?” he asks, as earnestly as he possibly can before looking down at his equations and adding, “Hypothetically.”

The look Hikaru gives him is so honestly surprised that he can’t help smiling, then biting his lip and looking back out at the waves.

“You don’t have to answer,” he offers in conciliation, hoping it hasn’t ruined his chances, but he wants to be honest with all of them, with Hikaru especially, because this is for life, like Jim said, and he’d never want to feel excluded by the men he’s practically idolized since he came here.

Hikaru exhales softly, and then nudges Pavel reassuringly. “I don’t think they would, but…” He waits until Pavel looks up at him again. “But I’ve wondered the same thing every day since I pledged.”

This time, Pavel mirrors Hikaru’s shocked expression and Hikaru laughs.

“None of them know. Not even Jim, though I think sometimes he… realizes.” Hikaru shifts and looks out at the horizon and Pavel’s heart feels like it might burst out of his chest.

“Do your parents know?” he asks so suddenly, a bursting question he doesn’t know how he’d ask anyone else. His father knows, and the rest of his family is dead or in Russia, too far away to care either way. He was closeted in high school, but not since he came to college, not that it’s mattered much. He remembers what it’s like to be afraid someone will find out, to be excluded and shamed for it because high school was kind of hell outside his friends.

“Yeah,” Hikaru laughs. “I just… not here, you know? I’ve thought about it before, but I always kinda…” He waves his hands uselessly and shrugs.

Pavel hums quietly and pulls his knees toward his chest. “Then it won’t hurt my chances any more than anything else I did this week?”

Hikaru laughs and squeezes his shoulder and stands up. “I’m not allowed to tell you anything about bids or anything, you know.” Something in his voice tells Pavel that it’ll be okay either way.

The subject changes after that, and the tide starts moving back in, covering over Pavel’s equations, when they decide to head back toward the school. This time, Hikaru leaves the radio off and they talk on the way back to the school. Hikaru drops him off at Archer Hall and Pavel watches him leave a little wistfully. It’s out of his hands now, and Hikaru’s got bid voting back at the DXT house.

Pavel goes up to his room and stays up until three-thirty in anxious tension, agonizingly reliving every moment of the week, trying to think what he might have done that ruined his chances. When he decides that there’s no use thinking about it anymore, he’s not getting a bid, he falls into bed and thinks vaguely that Vincent isn’t back, that there was some party tonight that he missed, and decides that he doesn’t care.

*

Pavel probably shouldn’t be nearly as surprised as he is when he gets the bid from DXT. He feels more out of place than he did on the first day of rush, but his whole Saturday is gone before he realizes it, and there’s still the party for the new pledges at the DXT house, the first one where they’re official after spending the whole day listening to requirements, regulations, restrictions, and the expectations the brothers have of them as their pledges. Tonight, though, the other fraternities will be throwing their own parties, and the DXT house will be the one packed with the most sisters from the most sororities, all trying to get a look at the new members of the elite on campus.

Jim is in his element here, bustling from person to person in an excellent imitation of a hummingbird in a garden, but Pavel looks for Hikaru for a whole hour before he finds him, holding a red cup with the punch in it and beaming when he sees Pavel.

“See, you did just fine!” he laughs and squeezes his shoulder. After their conversation the night before, it seems painfully lacking, like there should be something more than that, but he’s not going to start pushing his luck _now_. He’s still got six weeks of pledging ahead of him, and Hikaru is still the brother and he the pledge.

“When is my first caning?” Pavel jokes and Hikaru looks horrified for a splintered second before he catches on and laughs, especially as he was the one who gave the lecture on hazing and the importance that each pledge feel comfortable to talk to him in the case they ever felt that they were being hazed.

“Don’t joke like that,” he laughs and holds out the cup for Pavel. “First pledge class is Wednesday. Tonight we just celebrate, all right?”

Pavel nods in agreement and holds up his own cup. “Permission to speak freely,” he asks quietly, glad that they’ve gravitated toward the edge of the party, where they don’t have to shout to hear one another.

“Always,” Hikaru tells him, but his voice tells Pavel that he knows what this is about. They have a shared secret now, a private camaraderie that extends beyond their future as brothers.

“Did you mean what you told me last night?” he asks, but the words don’t come out as seriously as he wants because he’s already had too much to drink for that and so has Hikaru, judging by the faintly glazed look in his eyes when he blinks rapidly and sways a little.

“Every word,” he promises, and leans closer to Pavel than Pavel thinks any man ever has, but his lips only brush past his ear like he’s telling him a secret, trying to be heard over the thunderous pumping of music. “I’m so glad you decided to pledge DXT.”

Pavel wets his lips and looks between Hikaru and the cup in his hand, his _fourth_ , like he’s not going to have a horrible hangover in the morning, but he feels like nothing can stop him now; no force of nature, nothing except the gravity that draws him toward Hikaru.

“Can we go somewhere else?” he asks, and maybe it’s not proper, but Hikaru nods and pulls him back into the party, fingers curled limply around his wrist as they push through the crowd and head up the crowded stairs.

Hikaru lives on the third floor in his own room because he’s an officer, though it’s fairly small and cramped with fencing gear, his paddle displayed proudly over his bed and flanked with more decorations, awards, and certificates. Pavel barely has time to be impressed before Hikaru closes the door behind him and blushes.

“I know it’s kind of a mess, but—”

“It’s perfect,” Pavel interrupts, and means it so sincerely when he turns around and meets his eyes. “I know it’s dumb, but I just… I wanted to talk to _you_. Since before you told me—since before yesterday. You helped me move in and since then, I wanted to pledge DXT.”

“Hey,” Hikaru smiles and sits down on his bed. “Slow down there.” He toes off his shoes and sprawls out onto his bed, which Pavel takes as a cue to sit down in the chair at Hikaru’s desk. He hasn’t even pulled out the chair before Hikaru shouts like he’s been burned.

“No, no, here, with me,” he insists, slurring a little more than he had been downstairs. When Pavel sits on the mattress next to him, Hikaru forces himself to sit up again. “I wanted you to rush then, too,” he confesses. “Jim and I talked about it that night, kept hoping you wanted to for the last couple weeks.”

If he were sober, this would be the best news he’s heard in months, confirmation of what he’d barely dared to hope, but now he just leans heavily against Hikaru.

“I wanted this so much,” he sighs and turns his face against Hikaru’s neck. “I wanted to be close to you. I wanted to be one of you.”

“We would have met either way,” Hikaru tells him and looks down at him affectionately.

“You wouldn’t have let me into your bedroom. You wouldn’t have said—”

Pavel never gets to finish when he was intending to tell Hikaru that he didn’t think that they’d ever be this close if it weren’t for DXT. Hikaru leans in and touches the shell of Pavel’s ear with his fingers, his eyes pleading for permission before he brushes their lips together. Pavel surges forward and kisses him hard and moans when Hikaru responds immediately, his fingers moving up and into Pavel’s hair.

They sink back against the mattress, Hikaru’s head falling back against the pillows when Pavel straddles his hips. He’s aware that he’s hard, that Hikaru is hard, too, but neither of them moves to take off their clothes, not even when Hikaru ruts up against him, sending an electric charge up his spine from his cock. He feels drunker than he’s ever been in his life, all too aware that this is the first kiss he’s had since his first one, an awkward fumbling behind the bleachers with one of his friends who decided immediately that boys weren’t really his thing. He’s never _dreamed_ of anything like this, making out with his first crush since coming to college, joining a fraternity, and now it’s all real.

To his enormous surprise, Hikaru is the one who stiffens and presses their foreheads together when he comes. Pavel pulls back to stare at him in open surprise, awed and charmed by his fluttering eyelashes, even the crimson flush that spreads over his cheeks when he opens his eyes again.

“I—” he begins, then laughs nervously. “That’s really embarrassing, I’ve never…”

Pavel rocks down against him one last time and comes with him, pressing his face into the crook of Hikaru’s neck and thinking dimly that he should probably go back to his dorm as his vision blackens on the edges. “It’s fine.”

They fall asleep after that, worn out by the excitement of the day, the lingering exhaustion from the entire week, the alcohol in their blood. Pavel sleeps curled against Hikaru’s chest, and Hikaru curls right back around him. He wakes a few times through the night, unused to sharing a bed with anyone else, and shifts to get comfortable again, always closer to Hikaru than before. Once, he wakes and finds Hikaru staring at him from under heavy eyelids.

“You’re cute when you sleep,” Hikaru whispers and touches their lips for a few, lingering seconds. He’s asleep again within moments and dreams the rest of the night in swirled half-memories and Hikaru’s presence pressed close against him.

He feels Hikaru shift in his sleep, content to stay asleep until the door creaks open and Hikaru jerks up, swearing until the door closes with a sharp snap. Pavel jumps and blinks rapidly, cringing when the morning light drifts in from the hall.

“Hey, Roo!” Jim’s voice echoes in from the hall, a little louder than it needs to be, which makes Pavel’s heart contract in his chest. It’s over. It’s already over when it’s barely had the chance to start, pledging and whatever this is with Hikaru and the possibility that Jim might have even been his friend and brother in time, just like all the brothers here.

Hikaru looks down at him, wide-eyed in horror because _Jim knows now_ , when he’s tried to keep it to himself. Pavel hadn’t even thought of the implications for him, his own question echoing in his ears, whether anyone in DXT will accept that he’s gay, that _they’re_ gay.

“Jesus Christ, you should have said you were naked,” Jim announces, still in that same, resounding voice, but when Hikaru climbs out of bed (sometime in the night, though Pavel doesn’t know when, he must have stripped off his shirt, but the view only makes him blush brighter in shame) and throws open the door, Jim meets his eyes, then Pavel’s, and winks.

“It’s fine, guys,” he tells them, his voice considerably lower, and reaches for the door handle, already pulling it closed. “Go back to sleep. Drink some water, Pavel, you look like you’re going to puke. Roo, you should take better care of him.”

Pavel feels more naked like this, fully clothed and sprawled over Hikaru’s blankets, than he would if he were _actually_ naked, but Hikaru sucks in a breath when the door closes and turns to look at him slowly.

“It’s going to be okay,” he tells him and sits back down on the bed. Pavel can tell he’s only trying to make him feel better, but he believes it, because it’s Jim, because it’s _Hikaru_ , and because after just a week, he’s never felt threatened by anyone in DXT.

“It’ll be okay,” he echoes and reaches hesitantly for Hikaru, who tugs on his hand. “Hikaru, what—”

“Come on,” Hikaru urges, sighing, though he’s smiling at him warmly, encouraging as always. Pavel doesn’t think it’ll take him very long at all to fall in love with him, though it’s probably a bad idea, a really _stupid_ idea. “We’ll get breakfast off campus.”

He wants to ask what then, what happens next, if they’re even allowed to do this, but he scrambles out of bed and grimaces when he remembers that his underwear are sticky. Things will be apparent soon enough, he hopes, too lost in thought to hear Hikaru’s warning before a pair of fresh boxers lands on his hands.

He looks up at Hikaru, who looks suitably embarrassed, unsure and earnest in his own way, and knows it won’t take much time at all to fall for him.


End file.
